


Let Not Thy Hair Be out of Order

by Allekha



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: F/M, Ficlet, Fluff, Hair Brushing, Pre-Canon, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-02 04:09:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19433638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allekha/pseuds/Allekha
Summary: Early in their marriage, Lilia gets sick and hates not having any energy for her appearance. Yakov brushes her hair.





	Let Not Thy Hair Be out of Order

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: 100 words of hairbrushing 
> 
> I can't resist hairbrushing prompts.

There are few things that Lilia hates more than being unkempt.  
  
She has always taken pains with her appearance - good posture with head held high, neat clothes that suit her figure, and of course, hair styled without a strand out of place. Physical beauty of all kinds is vital for her performance on the stage, but she enjoys it for her own satisfaction, too. If she must spend hours each day finding the imperfections in her movements in the dance studio mirrors, the rest of her image might as well be pleasant to look at.  
  
Today, she knows that she is not very pleasant to look at, after she has spent most of the day attempting to sleep off a sudden illness, which she suspects is the flu. The loose braid she threw her hair into this morning is all frizzed, and she has been kicking and pulling at her blanket, unable to find a temperature that doesn't leave her either sweating or freezing. She hasn't changed into proper clothes, though it's almost dinnertime. Her voice is hoarse from coughing, and she has not been thinking pretty thoughts. Lilia does not like being weak. Having control of her body stolen from her by illness is hard to bear.  
  
If only her balance was a little less off-kilter from the fever, or perhaps if she didn't have a cough, she might have attempted to go to the studio anyway. She has danced through plenty of illnesses, with the help of medicines and willpower and schedules. But there are no performances tonight, and Yakov had asked her to rest instead of making her health worse and infecting her fellow dancers. The idea rankles, but she can see the sense in it. So she is resting.  
  
Yakov brings her tea as soon as he comes home from coaching, and doesn't breathe a word about her appearance. Lilia doesn't enjoy looking like this, and being this messy in front of someone else, even her husband, irritates her further. At least Yakov knows more about her, about the effort her appearance takes, than the theater-goers do. He has seen her feet without the pointe shoes, has seen her with sweat dripping down her face after a difficult practice session, has seen her at the end of a very long night without make-up and with her hair damp from washing.  
  
He comes in to tell her that dinner will be a few minutes, then more awkwardly, asks if she would like him to brush her hair while their soup finishes cooking. "I know you don't like it like that," he adds hastily, before she can possibly wonder for whose sake he's offering.  
  
"I don't," she agrees, fingering the messy braid.  
  
He sits her at the kitchen table. Lilia listens to the soup bubbling and tries to will away the lightheadedness that makes her want to lie down. She has been lying down all day. She can manage for long enough to eat something.  
  
Yakov has touched her hair before, plenty of times, gently and with admiration, but he's never combed it for her. The first touch of the comb after he undoes her braid is so light as to be useless, barely skimming through the top layer of her hair. He takes a breath, then puts the comb down to run his fingers through it a few times. There aren't many tangles, and then he combs in earnest, the teeth running along Lilia's scalp with just the right amount of pressure.  
  
Lilia finds herself relaxing against the back of the chair. Normally, she sits straight, but she is so tired that she can't find the energy to make herself do it, not when sitting and letting Yakov comb her hair without interruption is so calming. He switches out the comb for the brush, smoothing from the roots to the very ends of her long hair, then sets that down, too. He could stop there, but he doesn't, his hand stroking along the strands long past the point where he could ever smooth it any further.  
  
It's very pleasant. Lilia almost regrets the end of it when Yakov starts to braid her hair a few minutes later. He drapes it over her shoulder when he's done, before he steps away to get their soup. Gone is the half-undone mess; her hair is neat again, the black strands glossy and collected.  
  
She's still annoyingly warm and her throat hurts when she thanks him, but with this piece of order restored, Lilia feels better than she has in hours.


End file.
